Some considerations about learning foreign languages
The process of learning foreign languages is, for the students, a very slow and hard process; and, for parents, a source of anxiety.
Allow me to bring, as an example, the learning of the first language. Ever since the baby is born, parents talk to him/her using one, or more than one, language depending on their origin. Around the first year of age, the child, following the verbal stimulus of his/her parents and close family, reacts emitting disarticulated sounds and/or gesturing. Around the 2nd and 3rd year, the phase of oral production begins. The child begins to emit small phrases, not always grammatically correct, or to reproduce his/her parents’ expressions. Around the 5th year, the child communicates with certain correctness, using a limited and general vocabulary, and with still some errors (mainly in the areas of supposition, hypothesis, probability, and in the vocabulary).
On the other hand, the learning of foreign languages includes the following obstacles:
1- The student is partially exposed to the language target and receives limited input.
2- The student already knows one or more languages that act as filter and contamination.
3- The student studies the foreign language in an academic and formal environment. He/she knows that he/she is studying, under pressure and exigency. The learning happens through that filter and blocks it.
4- Not always there is an affective bond between the adult who offers the input and the child.
5- The student does not feel the necessity to learn another language. He/she speaks already one and has survived.
Therefore, as parents, it is important not to lose calm and hopes. Just around the 9th year, the child speaks almost correctly the mother first language/ languages. The perfect development of the writing will come some years later. Once the learning of a foreign language has started, it is necessary to continue it, stimulating the student and exposing him/her to the language target the most of the time. Unexpectedly, one day the child will begin speaking and without accent.
María Cortés, MA
